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US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

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Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#351

Post by hedora »

djfobbz wrote: post #274
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your conspiracy theory is laughable, primarily because "the current administration" doesn't have any control over the "official" marking of recessions, which is done by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is a private, independent non-profit.

Why does everything you personally don't agree with have to be a "conspiracy theory"? Seems like a trend these days!

By the definitions of "conspiracy" and "theory", this idea that Biden is secretly causing an independent agency do misrepresent economic data is, objectively, a conspiracy theory. If there is some proof it happened, then it would be called a conspiracy.

There is quite a trend toward calling things conspiracy theories these days, but there are more conspiracy theories being spread these days.

I think is is probably due to the well-documented conspiracies between the conservative (and some of the radical liberal) press and foreign propagandists to spread misinformation in the US, and conspiracy theories are an effective way to achieve that goal.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#352

Post by njcgbc »

InefficientRed wrote: post #315
bushbaba wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falling demand of non-necessities. People aren't buying "TVs". Which as you call out, is a stupidly strong recessionary signal.

Or, damn near every household bought a new TV during the pandemic lockdowns using their stimulus checks and now no one needs a new TV. I think Walmart's story in particular is one of stupidly bad demand forecasting.

Fast food is reporting the same thing, McDonald's put out a report a few days ago, Yum! Brands is yet to report results for the quarter but similar results are expected. Target had a similar report to Walmart.

It is mostly discretionary spending that is down; Wal-Mart reported the largest fall in apparel iirc, but demand is demand. One would expect discretionary spending to fall first, and hopefully it stops there.

Again I apologize for not providing a direct citation due to my dumb mobile browser but these are days-old news stories and it should be easy to confirm

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#353

Post by s1artibartfast »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #231
gorwell wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm liberal and don't want central planning. It terrifies me that we are headed down that road at all; even seeing trial balloons for price controls. It always ends very, very badly and there's no reason to think this time would be different.

Price controls on medicine in Europe have worked very well compared to America's "free market" by pretty much any measure.

Most of Europe doesn't have price controls, but purchasing controls.

They are similar but different.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#354

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

kube-system wrote: post #348
OscarCunningham wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Fed has no mandate to generate or maintain economic growth. Correct. And yet they let inflation get this bad, so it seems like they're trying to avoid recessions even though they haven't been told to.

Or they believed it would be transitory and any action would upset longer term price and employment stability.

You don't need to guess; you can go read the minutes of prior Fed meetings here:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars....

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#355

Post by ceejayoz »

rabuse wrote: post #314
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price controls on medicine in Europe have worked very well compared to America's "free market" by pretty much any measure.

Subsidized by America's spending on R&D for the rest of the planet, just like the military.

That's the industry PR line, at least.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-p...

> The biggest spender, Johnson & Johnson, shelled out $17.5 billion on sales and marketing in 2013, compared with $8.2 billion for R&D. In the top 10, only Roche spent more on R&D than on sales and marketing.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#356

Post by tenpies »

markus_zhang wrote: post #222
yuan43 wrote: post #43

> Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022 (table 1), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 1.6 percent. That makes two back-to-back quarters of real GDP contraction. To some, this is a recession, but it's the NBER that puts the stamp on it. AFAIK, NBER has never failed…

Let's see who breaks first.

The real scary moment will be when you see the White House and Democrats re-define what stagflation is.

After all, this is a recession. Inflation is comically high - despite the incredibly massaged CPI number. The third and last criteria for stagflation is high unemployment, which it seems like we're heading into as soon as this last post-lockdown boom in consumer spending falls off a cliff.

Stagflation is very scary and it's going to be either the end of the USD, or further raising rates into a recession. Either way will produce untold suffering and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. And we're going full ESG and trying to make energy (and food) as expensive as possible. This is definitely a first and credit has to go to Western leaders because it really takes talent to self-destroy to this extent.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#357

Post by kube-system »

ericmay wrote: post #50
Unklejoe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with that is: > significant decline in economic activity What is "significant"? > more than a few months How long exactly? All I gather from their description is that they basically just get a "feel" for it. That's why so many people choose to follow the two negative quarter thing - it's objective and clearly defined, but maybe less accurate (particularly in cases like now where unemployment is still reall…

You're approaching it from the standpoint that it's an exact science, but it's more of a social science and you can't really pin down exact specifics, but only best guesses. Unfortunately (and I fell into this camp for a long time) many people see economics and see the mathematical models and assume that it must be scientific or precise, but the marketing campaign to legitimize economics unfortunately confused many o…

I like to think of it as not really one or the other, but as both. It’s like a venn-diagram intersection of finance and sociology. Some elements of economics are purely quantifiable, and some elements are purely human.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#358

Post by InefficientRed »

phpisthebest wrote: post #300
mywittyname wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we are in a recession. >How did we get to a point where actual data can be outright denied or absorbed based on your political viewpoint? Because the actual data is sending mixed signals. People equate recessions with job losses, but job growth is still high and unemployment remains incredibly low. Businesses equate recessions with reduced demand for goods and and services, yet demand remains strong enou…

They are not mixed signals, the data we use for signaling is flawed for the modern area Take for example the U-3 unemployment number that you cite, what is missing from that is Workforce Participation, we have a pretty large drop-off in Work force participation which is leading to the false belief that employment is "fine", and the quote "mix signal" of being in a recession while still having lower unemployment. Comp…

>>>GDP has long been criticized for being a poor metric for the economy. But it's always been correlated enough with overall economic sentiment that it was Good Enough.

>> yes by MMT supporters that want to ignore the classic model of economics in favor of monetary manipulation for political purposes

Huh?

Discussing the utility of and then issues with GDP has been a staple of Macro courses for decades. E.g., [1], but I'm really serious: every single macro textbook for as long as macro textbooks have existed has had some version of the question "Discuss the strengths and weaknesses (i.e., problems) of using GDP data".

[1] https://www.austincc.edu/sondg/Exams/macro/exam2.html

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#359

Post by p_j_w »

njcgbc wrote: post #293
mywittyname wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we are in a recession. >How did we get to a point where actual data can be outright denied or absorbed based on your political viewpoint? Because the actual data is sending mixed signals. People equate recessions with job losses, but job growth is still high and unemployment remains incredibly low. Businesses equate recessions with reduced demand for goods and and services, yet demand remains strong enou…

> Businesses equate recessions with reduced demand for goods and and services, yet demand remains strong This isn't true, major retailers have been reporting falling demand. I'd cite the WSJ but for some reason I can't paste the link in this box, just Google "falling demand Wal-Mart" > enough to push prices and profits to record levels. Adjust both for inflation

>I'd cite the WSJ but for some reason I can't paste the link in this box, just Google "falling demand Wal-Mart"

I'd rather not base my picture of the entire economy around a single retailer. What's going on with other retailers? Amazon, Best Buy, Target, etc? Have they more than picked up the slack that Wal Mart is seeing?

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#360

Post by ramoz »

Whenever I want to try and understand what may be happening in the economy, I rewatch[1] Ray Dalio’s 2013 video on how the economic machine works.

Bits about a “recession” come up around the 12-18min mark with relevant info beyond.

That said, I don’t know enough to map/equate these simple types of economic explanation with current actual state.

[1] https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0

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